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[music] >> Hello, I'm Greg Bonnell. Welcome to MoneyTalk Live, brought to you by TD Direct Investing.
coming up on today show, we are giving you a look at personal finance from three perspectives.
Georgia Swan will have a look at the new TFSA Limited what you may want to do with the extra room. And Mindi Banach will discuss some of the rules around wills for Canadians living outside the country and naming a beneficiary if you convert your RRSP to an RRIF. Plus in today's WebBroker education segment, Bryan Rogers will have a look at how you can see what stocks analysts are focusing on using the platform. Forget all that, let's get you an update on the markets.
Let's check in on the S&P TSX composite index. We are up a modest 15 1/2 points or seven checks right now, just about 21,000 on that headline number. As I said, not a lot of activities today but the uranium plays continue to get a bit on Bay Street, including Cameco. Let's check in on that name right now.
That's up one and 1/2%, building on recent gains. You can see that since about the start of the year, these uranium plays have really been on a move higher. I also want to check in on Denison Mines and see what we are getting there. Again, seems to be benefiting all boats in the uranium space, 4 1/2 points to the upside for Denison, to ask and $0.76 per share.
South of the border, they are not trading today, they are on holiday. We can check in on the S&P 500 for the past year, see what kind of run it's had. It was a good 2023. In 2024, it's a bit of a sideways trade right now.
A few things overhanging when it comes to investors, including one at the rate cuts going to come, with inflation going to look like, etc. And that's your market update.
There will be a lot going on this week in Canada as well, even though Americans are closed from trading, we got some fresh reports landing in our lives today and some the reports coming out and that will mean something. Anthony Okolie joining us now for the Bank of Canada coming out with the rate decision before the end of the month, what are we saying now?
>> Today we got a couple of surveys. I will start with the Business Outlook Survey.
It reported that the downward pressure on growth of input and output prices has eased somewhat leading to a less negative Business Outlook Survey indicator in the fourth quarter of last year.
The BeOS indicator improved .3%, it's up to -3.2 where it near term consumer price expectations fell by just 0.1 percentage points, to remain well above preclude levels. Firms expect sales to slow as interest rates continue to choke consumer spending. They also see that inflation is easing despite increased concerns over wages. Interestingly enough, 38% of those businesses surveyed expect a recession this year, that's up from 30% in the previous survey. I will quickly mention the separate Bank of Canada survey that showed that consumers do not expect further rate hikes this year as well.
Their expectations for future inflation is easing. Interesting dynamics on inflation and wages from the survey.
>> This is the Bank of Canada zone survey so they put stock in it in terms of what they are thinking about the path for inflation and what they need to do about interest rates.
Also, we are going to get our read. We've had a fresh read from the Americans last week, the first of the year on inflation.
Tomorrow I believe we get ours.
>> Exactly.
The US report came in a little bit hotter than expected. We get ours I believe tomorrow and the expectation is that we will see December inflation coming in at 3.2% year-over-year, a slight uptick from November's number. Again, this going to be important for the Bank of Canada because they will be announcing their interest rate announcement is coming out in January. The big focuses one will interest rates be coming down this year and so these reports will be very critical to the Bank of Canada.
>> I have my calendar right here and I hope I put the date in right, January 24, Wednesday, a little over a week away for the next VOC rate decision. I believe TD Economics holds the position that we are not going to get a change in rates in this coming decision, it's probably going to be April before we see that pivot.
>> Exactly. They are looking for the Bank of Canada to cut interest rates by the April meeting and that aligns with market consensus that they expect the Bank of Canada to cut interest rates on.
I should mention that we are also getting retail sales as well and TD Economics is actually seeing some evidence of domestic demand in their most recent debit and credit card data. They are seeing indications that consumer spending was at more than 6% year-over-year in December, largely driven by spending on services.
They believe that this uptick is likely going to be short lived and that households will return to more cautious spending behaviour in the first half of 2024.
>> On top of all that, we are getting into the thick of earnings season. If we were does the last week, I'm just looking at myself, I was dozy last week, coming back from a holiday, we are going to have to be sharp for the days and weeks coming forward.
>> Yes, lots is going to be happening. We are moving into the thick of earnings season so a lot of things for investors to watch.
>> Good stuff. Thanks for that.
Right now, let's get you updated on the top stories in the world of business and take a look at how the markets are trading.
Canadian home sales surprisingly picked up in December. New numbers in the Canadian Real Estate Association showed a nearly 9% jump in transactions from November into December. That said, so your home sales for all of 23, those transactions came in at the lowest level since the financial crisis in 2008. The market has been adjusting to those higher borrowing costs.
It's another warning that artificial intelligence could disrupt millions of jobs. The international monetary fund says nearly 2 and five jobs globally are at risk of disruption from AI with that number rising to three and five jobs in high income countries.
The IMF, despite that, is also recognizing that AI could boost productivity in those high income countries.
Got word that Apple is cutting prices in China amid fierce competition in the smartphone market. The Tan France website is showing it is reducing the cost of several products by as much as $70 US, ahead of China's lunar new year holiday next month. The price cuts are considered a rare move from Apple when it comes to the Chinese market.
Quick check in on the markets and perhaps market, Bay Street, the TSX Composite Index, the Americans are closed down today and they are not trading for Martin Luther King Day. They will be back tomorrow.
Volumes are late here as often happens when we are trading but the Americans are not. Up about 15 points to the upside.
If you are turning 71 this year, that means you will be converting your registered retirement savings plan into a registered retirement income fund into a RIFF and you may be wondering whether or not you have to name a new beneficiary.
>> There is no automatic transfer of the beneficiary. If you do not updated, what ends up happening is the default situation is that your estate is going to inherit your RRIF account and what that means is that if you have a will, it will be beneficiaries under your will, if you don't have a will, it will be beneficiaries under.
. . You will have to go to the probate process and likely have to pay probate fees which varies based on the province. I want to let you know that when you do update your beneficiary designation, you can name the same people or person that you named as your RRSP beneficiary, but you do need to update that beneficiary.
>> I don't like the word intestacy.
Whenever you say that, I know that it's bad. You do need to take action and name someone for the RIFF. The question is,What do you name them because there are a couple of choices here. There is successor or beneficiary. What are the differences?
>> With respect to a successor, the only person that you can name as a successor is a spouse or common-law partner where is your beneficiary could be anyone, family, friends or charity.
There are some key other differences as well related to the management as well as taxes. If you are naming your spouse as the successor with respect to the RRIF, it is called… It is your successor and tuition. They will not be the tax implications for your state.
If you name anyone other than a spouse, there will be a tax obligation to your state. It's an income tax inclusion that whatever remained in your RRIF account on the date of your passing will be includable as income on your final tax return. I want to highlight that whether it is a successor annuitant or beneficiary, whether it's your spouse or someone else, the beneficiaries inherit the RRIF account tax-free. It's your state that pays the taxes if it's not distributed to a spouse.
>> Got it. Okay. Having said that though, we always finish this with what you need to do.
Discuss this with him to help you navigate and get the intentions that you want actually have happening?
>> I think the first step is really to go to the financial institution that holds your registered accounts. Often times, financial institution, TD included, have created their own beneficiary designation forms. You can fill it out. Whether you should fill out a specific financial institutional form, some other form, how you should fill out that form, who you should name on that form, that's where it is best for you to go to your lawyer or financial advisor.
>> That was Mindi Banach, tax and estate planner at TD Wealth along with MoneyTalk's Kim Parlee.
The tax-free savings account contribution limit has bumped up to $7000 this year.
It's up from 6 1/2 thousand dollars in 2023. Georgia Swan, tax and estate planner with TD Wealth, joined Anthony Okolie to discuss how the limit gets calculated and how you can make the most of the TFSA benefits.
>> It's $5000 and then indexed for inflation for every year after 2009. It's calculated, for example, the 2024 limit was calculated using the Consumer Price Index for September 2023. That came in at about 3.8, 3.86% so then there's the federal indexation factor for the coming year and that's calculated as the monthly average CPI for the 12 month period ending on September 30, 2023, for example, divided by the CPI average for the 12 month period ended September 30 of the previous year.
So using that math, the indexation rate was around 4.7.
So that gave us a TFSA limit for 2024 of about 6800 and change and then ramp it up.
That's how we got to 7000.
>> Got it. What does this increase mean for people's individual contribution limits?
>> Your individual contribution limit is based on how many years that you have since you turned 18 since 2009. So if you were 18 and 2009, your annual contribution limit and let's say you never contributed to a TFSA for 2023, it would've been $88,000 after 2024, it will go up to $95,000.
That's if you've never contributed. The best way to find out your contribution limit is to go on CRA's my account and look at that or your notice of assessment will also give you that information.
>> I find this interesting because the average unused contribution room among TFSA holders is just over $40,000. That's a lot of room. Can you remind people of the benefits of using a TFSA so they can take advantage of it?
>> It's tax-free, it's the only thing we have that's truly tax-free like that. As well, when you withdraw money from your TFSA, it doesn't actually get counted towards your taxable income so it won't affect any income tested benefits, it won't affect your OAS clawback. When you withdraw from and that contribution room gets added to the next year. It's great for short-term goals but really it's meant for those longer-term goals. So if you're saving for a car, if you are saving for that vacation you always been waiting for, this is the time to really make sure that you top those contributions.
>> And develop your equity.
>> Absolutely.
>> With this increase, is it wise to consider moving money from an unregistered account into a TFSA?
>> It depends. You have to take into account the fact that if you have a nonregistered account and you liquidate assets, there will likely be a tax liability. You transferred to your TFSA in your TFSA is going to have to make up that tax payment before it starts making money for you. So the best course of action is to make sure that you do crunch the numbers, speak to your account into your financial advisor because if you do bump up your income from one year because you liquidated something from your nonregistered account, you don't want it to affect other things. For the most part, it usually comes out in favour of getting that money into the TFSA but make sure you crunch the numbers anyway.
>> I'm a long-term investor but can you trade in your TFSA?
>> Absolutely.
You can trade in it for sure, but you have to be careful not to be considered to be daytrading. You also be careful of the fact that there are some prohibited investments that you cannot make within your TFSA. Of course, if you do trade in the US, the US does not recognize the tax-free status of the TFSA so there is going to be some withholding. You're not going to have to declare it on your income tax return as income but the withholding will be done at the source.
So you have to be careful about those things but the CRA website has some great resources about that.
>> Okay, finally, is it worth speaking with someone to help you make the most of your TFSA contribution room?
>> Absolutely. This is the time to speak to your financial advisor or investment advisor as well because of what we spoke about earlier to make sure you are maximizing those contributions.
>> That was Georgia Swan, tax and estate planner with TD Wealth speaking with MoneyTalk's Anthony Okolie.
Now, let's get our educational segment of the day.
If you are looking to find out what stocks are catching the eye of analysts, WebBroker has tools which can help.
Joining us now to discuss, Bryan Rogers, senior client education instructor with TD Direct Investing.
Great to see you. Let's talk about the stock that analysts are talking about. How would we find that?
>> Yeah, that's a good question, Greg.
The Analyst Centre and Whataburger is a great tool, one that I like quite a bit because for a while in WebBroker you pull up a stock and see maybe one or two analysts, maybe a couple of analysts ranking the stock and you wouldn't know what other ones are out there there could be ranking it.
Here's a perspective of a few analysts, but what about the rest?
From client feedback over the years, we identified a third-party provider that provides information called Tip Ranks and that ended up into a tool on WebBroker called the Analyst Centre. I want to do a dive into show everybody what benefits it can have to see what analysts are saying about a stock and maybe I can get an idea and gauge some further research into a particular stock. If we jump into WebBroker, I want to first show everyone the area that will default on the Analyst Centre to this most recent section and then there are also trending stocks as well. If we go back your little bit and wants to find it, just back up slightly and make sure we know where this is, we are going to go to the research tab within my broker and then to the Analyst Centre.
There are a couple of ways to find this.
This is a way to start from scratch. Click on the Analyst Centre and it defaults to the most recent. It's going to show you these are the analyst ratings of the most recent analyst ratings within the US and Canadian markets and you can see it filtered by analysts and ranking.
If you want to see the Analyst Centre are the top analyst, five-star rated in terms of their past rankings, you're saying the best of the best in terms of analysts.
Maybe you want to expand your horizons a bit more and see some that are not five-star but four-star or if you want to check these you can see all of the analyst ratings as well. You can see on the right hand side that this is now showing analysts that are ranked five or four stars and it gives you the stocks that they have actually identified recently and analysed or rated, gave their own rating, and they will put either a hold or a buy or sell. You can see the price target.
Some of them might be outside of the range were looking for, too low or too high, but there are ways you can look at stocks that might be trending as well.
So if I scroll down I can see that I filter a bit here, I can filter by a number of different things if I wanted to do United States or just stocks in Canada or if I want to look at the market cap size or sector so you can do that by jumping into the trending stocks.
They are most rated stocks more recently and you can see there is a pretty big list as I scroll down I can go down to the bottom and there's going to be a number of pages of stocks that are analysed or rated by the analysts at this point.
Then you can go to the top and filter it and say that you want to see the best rated stocks in the last week for example.
If I look at that, I can see both Canadian and the US, it showing both countries right now and I can even filter further, strong body or just by, I can look at worst rated if I'm looking to do a short position and then I can filter further by US if I want to look at US stocks, I can look at Canada. So these lists are gonna be created however you filter so you can filter down as much as you like and then this is going to give you an idea of either what's being rated most recently or what is trending based on a strong buy or a strong sell. This is from a company called tip ranks.
People can subscribe to it outside of WebBroker but WebBroker users that get this for free within the platform.
>> These are different ways of screening through criteria. They see a stock that piques their interest, what's the next step there?
>> That's a really important question.
You don't want to rely just on the analysts. That is an input, one input that's going to come in, but it's easy to go into further information but you can use that as a starting point if you want to go to those trending stocks and find a stock that's 1 Easy Way to do it. Or if you do have a stock in mind already and you want to see, hey, this tip ranks thing, does it apply to the stock identified? You can use the Analyst Centre and then other additional things to research it further. Let's take a quick look at how you would do that.
Let me change this to the US. I'm gonna go best rated over the last 30 days, so will it in a month, I'm gonna go to the United States on a filter down a little bit more, let's say I go to a mega-cap stock if that's what I'm looking for. I could go further into a sector if I had a sector in mind. You can see stocks that are familiar to us already. There is Amazon, Microsoft and so on.
But if we wanted to look at Microsoft further, we would have to click on the link of the symbol and I'll take us into more detail in the stock and web broker where we have this page, we have an overview, we have charts, we have news, all of the stuff is available for us to research, even reports. If I go to reports, you're gonna see a listing of available reports that are offered by web broker so there are detailed investor reports here as well on the stock. So my favourites are I would say the MorningStar analyst report and there's a quantitative report and I like Thompson as well, it gives your ranking in a number of different fundamental areas of how the stock ranks out of 10.
And then I mentioned that you could use the Analyst Centre as well for that specific stock. You might have Microsoft here. I can go to analysts and now I can get a good idea of what's their idea of an average price target going forward? You can see this 37 analysts rating Microsoft here giving it a strong buy. There 36 out of the 37 has a buy rating so you can see those type of statistics. And you can scroll down and look at, who is writing this and what is their price target and what is their ranking? You can even follow some of these two.
If you click on some of these analysts, you can follow them, like social media where you can follow and see what other stocks they might be ranking as well.
That's just some of the detail. There's so much more you can go into with fundamentals, earnings and see events like upcoming earnings and dividends and things like that, and then really make your decision based on looking at the charts and other stuff.
>> Lots of useful tools there, Bryan, what investors are doing their homework on a stock. Thanks for that.
>> Thanks, Greg.
>> Bryan Rogers, Senior client education instructor with TD Direct Investing.
And make sure to check out the learning centre in WebBroker for more educational videos, live, interactive master classes and upcoming webinars.
Before we get you an update on the markets, a reminder that you can get in touch with us at any time.
Do you have a question about investing or what's driving the markets?
Our guests are eager to hear what's on your mind, so send us your questions.
There are two ways you can get in touch with us.
You can send us an email anytime at moneytalklive@td.com or you can use the question box right below the screen here on WebBroker. Just write in your question and hit send.
We'll see if one of our guests can get you the answer right here at MoneyTalk Live.
We are having a look at TD's Advanced Dashboard, platform designed for active traders available through TD Direct Investing. This is the heat map function.
It gives us a view of the market movers today because the markets are closed for market Luther King day. We will be looking at the TSX. The TSX 60. Let's screen through by Price and volume. We have seen some interesting moves today. Among the uranium plays, Cameco will represent the TSX 60, CCO, a little more than 2%.
We've seen quite a move in these uranium stocks, whether it's in the centre Cameco since the beginning of the year, there is some fresh concerns in Kazakhstan that they might not hit the production targets they thought they would over the next two years for a variety of reasons, poor production numbers perhaps. Getting some people excited about the environment for some of these uranium plays.
Another update for Cameco. A more makes for traditional energy plays like CNQ or Cenovus making some games. In the materials basket, First Quantum is up to the tune of about 1 1/3%. The miners are not really taking part. Then BCE, up a little more than 1%. Telus and Rogers showing. Because the American markets are closed, the volumes are pretty subdued here on Bay Street so we are seeing some of these moves today but perhaps want to keep a keener ion market moves as we move through the week.
You need more information on TD Advanced Dashboard by visiting TD.com/Advanced Dashboard.
If you own a vacation home or other assets outside of Canada, there is in circumstances where you might want to consider having a will as well as powers of attorney documentation that account for these assets.
Mindi Banach, a tax and estate planner, TD Wealth, joined MoneyTalk's Kim Parlee to discuss what to know when it comes to estate planning for your and at international assets.
>> Lee focus on the will. Despite common advice that suggest a blanket need for a foreign will if you own assets outside of Canada, in my opinion, it more closely aligns with the typical legal answer of it depends on the unique facts and circumstances of each case and more specifically I think it depends on two factors. Number one, the specific jurisdiction that you are looking at, as well as number two, the specific asset that you own. In that other jurisdiction, if they do not recognize a Canadian well, I think the argument for drafting a foreign will becomes more compelling but I then think you need to look at the two factors I mentioned, specific jurisdiction in specific assets, because in other jurisdictions they may have alternative strategies available to transfer specific assets after death, rendering the need for any well whether it's a Canadian will or a foreign well, unnecessary. For example, I'm thinking of certain states in the United States, Florida being one of them, they have a specific strategy available in Florida that allows you to transfer real estate property after death, rendering the need for any well, whether it's Canadian or US, unnecessary. Whether or not you should utilize that strategy or you should draft a will in the forest jurisdiction, again, look at the factors, the specific jurisdiction and the specific asset because practically it may make more sense to draft a foreign will. He wants to look at those two factors. Switching focus to powers of attorney, I think that the best practices that you should be drafting a power of attorney in every single jurisdiction where you own assets and this is based on practical nature. If you own assets in Ontario, what Ontario is going to readily accept a power of attorney that was drafted outside of Ontario lightly before they except that foreign power of attorney in Ontario and Ontario does recognize foreign powers of attorney, they may demand Ontario legal opinion and because of that it likely becomes more time and cost effective to just draft a power of attorney in every jurisdiction where you own assets. One other point that I do want to highlight that is vital is that you want to ensure that if you do end up drafting multiple jurisdictional powers of attorney, or multiple jurisdictional wills, you ensure that the documents don't unintentionally revoke each other. You would not want your Ontario documents to revoke your Florida documents and vice versa.
>> What happens, in that example you gave, because it becomes a cautionary tale, the question is, what happens if you don't put the proper paperwork in place for foreign assets where you unintentionally put something that contradicts?
>> Let me share a cautionary tale. There is a documented case on this where there was a Canadian man who set up a fairly complex Canadian estate plan and in his Canadian will, he distribute the assets to his biological children from his first marriage as well as distributed assets into a spousal trust for his second wife who was significantly younger than him.
After he had signed and set up his Canadian will, he subsequently purchased property in Florida and he thought he did what was right and he drafted a Florida will and in that will that only covered his Florida property, he did distribute the Florida property specifically and exclusively to his second wife. The mistake that ended up happening was that that Florida will include what I call a general revocation law which indicates: I revoke all prior wills.
>> Which is common, right?
>> It is common.
What that Florida will did was it revoked the Canadian will so what ends up happening is when this man passed away, all of these Canadian assets ended up getting distributed under intestacy laws which is the law that governs if you don't have a will and he didn't have a valid Canadian will and the intestacy laws did not align with his original intention that he had included in his Canadian will.
Cautionary tale. I'm not saying it was a mistake to draft a foreign well, it was a mistake not to get the right cross-border advice.
>> That's so hard. Someone is gone to the work have created something to not have his wishes carried out, that's hard.
Who should people speak to you to understand the appropriate steps for them?
>> It's not only important to go to a lawyer who has special expertise in estate planning, you need to go to an estate planning lawyer who has familiarity or deeper understanding of the law and that other jurisdiction and vice versa. You want to ensure that your documents are done the right way.
If you can find a dual license lawyer, great, but it can be like finding a unicorn, it might be impossible or not exist. Best to find a Canadian lawyer who has familiarity with that foreign jurisdiction and vice versa.
>> That was Mindi Banach, tax and estate planner with TD Wealth speaking with MoneyTalk's Kim Parlee.
We will leave you with a final look at the TSX. The American markets are closed for Martin Luther King Day. Trading volumes are muted here today.
We are up 1/10 of a percent. The uranium plays including Cameco and Denison today continue to shine. They've been on the move upward since the beginning of the year.
Stay tuned for tomorrow's show. We will be joined by Jing Roy, VP, Dir. and portfolio manager for TDS allocation with TD Asset Management. We will be taking your questions about asset allocation. You can get a Headstart with your questions. Just email moneytalklive@td.com. That's all the time we have for the show today. Thanks for watching, and we will see you tomorrow.
[music]
coming up on today show, we are giving you a look at personal finance from three perspectives.
Georgia Swan will have a look at the new TFSA Limited what you may want to do with the extra room. And Mindi Banach will discuss some of the rules around wills for Canadians living outside the country and naming a beneficiary if you convert your RRSP to an RRIF. Plus in today's WebBroker education segment, Bryan Rogers will have a look at how you can see what stocks analysts are focusing on using the platform. Forget all that, let's get you an update on the markets.
Let's check in on the S&P TSX composite index. We are up a modest 15 1/2 points or seven checks right now, just about 21,000 on that headline number. As I said, not a lot of activities today but the uranium plays continue to get a bit on Bay Street, including Cameco. Let's check in on that name right now.
That's up one and 1/2%, building on recent gains. You can see that since about the start of the year, these uranium plays have really been on a move higher. I also want to check in on Denison Mines and see what we are getting there. Again, seems to be benefiting all boats in the uranium space, 4 1/2 points to the upside for Denison, to ask and $0.76 per share.
South of the border, they are not trading today, they are on holiday. We can check in on the S&P 500 for the past year, see what kind of run it's had. It was a good 2023. In 2024, it's a bit of a sideways trade right now.
A few things overhanging when it comes to investors, including one at the rate cuts going to come, with inflation going to look like, etc. And that's your market update.
There will be a lot going on this week in Canada as well, even though Americans are closed from trading, we got some fresh reports landing in our lives today and some the reports coming out and that will mean something. Anthony Okolie joining us now for the Bank of Canada coming out with the rate decision before the end of the month, what are we saying now?
>> Today we got a couple of surveys. I will start with the Business Outlook Survey.
It reported that the downward pressure on growth of input and output prices has eased somewhat leading to a less negative Business Outlook Survey indicator in the fourth quarter of last year.
The BeOS indicator improved .3%, it's up to -3.2 where it near term consumer price expectations fell by just 0.1 percentage points, to remain well above preclude levels. Firms expect sales to slow as interest rates continue to choke consumer spending. They also see that inflation is easing despite increased concerns over wages. Interestingly enough, 38% of those businesses surveyed expect a recession this year, that's up from 30% in the previous survey. I will quickly mention the separate Bank of Canada survey that showed that consumers do not expect further rate hikes this year as well.
Their expectations for future inflation is easing. Interesting dynamics on inflation and wages from the survey.
>> This is the Bank of Canada zone survey so they put stock in it in terms of what they are thinking about the path for inflation and what they need to do about interest rates.
Also, we are going to get our read. We've had a fresh read from the Americans last week, the first of the year on inflation.
Tomorrow I believe we get ours.
>> Exactly.
The US report came in a little bit hotter than expected. We get ours I believe tomorrow and the expectation is that we will see December inflation coming in at 3.2% year-over-year, a slight uptick from November's number. Again, this going to be important for the Bank of Canada because they will be announcing their interest rate announcement is coming out in January. The big focuses one will interest rates be coming down this year and so these reports will be very critical to the Bank of Canada.
>> I have my calendar right here and I hope I put the date in right, January 24, Wednesday, a little over a week away for the next VOC rate decision. I believe TD Economics holds the position that we are not going to get a change in rates in this coming decision, it's probably going to be April before we see that pivot.
>> Exactly. They are looking for the Bank of Canada to cut interest rates by the April meeting and that aligns with market consensus that they expect the Bank of Canada to cut interest rates on.
I should mention that we are also getting retail sales as well and TD Economics is actually seeing some evidence of domestic demand in their most recent debit and credit card data. They are seeing indications that consumer spending was at more than 6% year-over-year in December, largely driven by spending on services.
They believe that this uptick is likely going to be short lived and that households will return to more cautious spending behaviour in the first half of 2024.
>> On top of all that, we are getting into the thick of earnings season. If we were does the last week, I'm just looking at myself, I was dozy last week, coming back from a holiday, we are going to have to be sharp for the days and weeks coming forward.
>> Yes, lots is going to be happening. We are moving into the thick of earnings season so a lot of things for investors to watch.
>> Good stuff. Thanks for that.
Right now, let's get you updated on the top stories in the world of business and take a look at how the markets are trading.
Canadian home sales surprisingly picked up in December. New numbers in the Canadian Real Estate Association showed a nearly 9% jump in transactions from November into December. That said, so your home sales for all of 23, those transactions came in at the lowest level since the financial crisis in 2008. The market has been adjusting to those higher borrowing costs.
It's another warning that artificial intelligence could disrupt millions of jobs. The international monetary fund says nearly 2 and five jobs globally are at risk of disruption from AI with that number rising to three and five jobs in high income countries.
The IMF, despite that, is also recognizing that AI could boost productivity in those high income countries.
Got word that Apple is cutting prices in China amid fierce competition in the smartphone market. The Tan France website is showing it is reducing the cost of several products by as much as $70 US, ahead of China's lunar new year holiday next month. The price cuts are considered a rare move from Apple when it comes to the Chinese market.
Quick check in on the markets and perhaps market, Bay Street, the TSX Composite Index, the Americans are closed down today and they are not trading for Martin Luther King Day. They will be back tomorrow.
Volumes are late here as often happens when we are trading but the Americans are not. Up about 15 points to the upside.
If you are turning 71 this year, that means you will be converting your registered retirement savings plan into a registered retirement income fund into a RIFF and you may be wondering whether or not you have to name a new beneficiary.
>> There is no automatic transfer of the beneficiary. If you do not updated, what ends up happening is the default situation is that your estate is going to inherit your RRIF account and what that means is that if you have a will, it will be beneficiaries under your will, if you don't have a will, it will be beneficiaries under.
. . You will have to go to the probate process and likely have to pay probate fees which varies based on the province. I want to let you know that when you do update your beneficiary designation, you can name the same people or person that you named as your RRSP beneficiary, but you do need to update that beneficiary.
>> I don't like the word intestacy.
Whenever you say that, I know that it's bad. You do need to take action and name someone for the RIFF. The question is,What do you name them because there are a couple of choices here. There is successor or beneficiary. What are the differences?
>> With respect to a successor, the only person that you can name as a successor is a spouse or common-law partner where is your beneficiary could be anyone, family, friends or charity.
There are some key other differences as well related to the management as well as taxes. If you are naming your spouse as the successor with respect to the RRIF, it is called… It is your successor and tuition. They will not be the tax implications for your state.
If you name anyone other than a spouse, there will be a tax obligation to your state. It's an income tax inclusion that whatever remained in your RRIF account on the date of your passing will be includable as income on your final tax return. I want to highlight that whether it is a successor annuitant or beneficiary, whether it's your spouse or someone else, the beneficiaries inherit the RRIF account tax-free. It's your state that pays the taxes if it's not distributed to a spouse.
>> Got it. Okay. Having said that though, we always finish this with what you need to do.
Discuss this with him to help you navigate and get the intentions that you want actually have happening?
>> I think the first step is really to go to the financial institution that holds your registered accounts. Often times, financial institution, TD included, have created their own beneficiary designation forms. You can fill it out. Whether you should fill out a specific financial institutional form, some other form, how you should fill out that form, who you should name on that form, that's where it is best for you to go to your lawyer or financial advisor.
>> That was Mindi Banach, tax and estate planner at TD Wealth along with MoneyTalk's Kim Parlee.
The tax-free savings account contribution limit has bumped up to $7000 this year.
It's up from 6 1/2 thousand dollars in 2023. Georgia Swan, tax and estate planner with TD Wealth, joined Anthony Okolie to discuss how the limit gets calculated and how you can make the most of the TFSA benefits.
>> It's $5000 and then indexed for inflation for every year after 2009. It's calculated, for example, the 2024 limit was calculated using the Consumer Price Index for September 2023. That came in at about 3.8, 3.86% so then there's the federal indexation factor for the coming year and that's calculated as the monthly average CPI for the 12 month period ending on September 30, 2023, for example, divided by the CPI average for the 12 month period ended September 30 of the previous year.
So using that math, the indexation rate was around 4.7.
So that gave us a TFSA limit for 2024 of about 6800 and change and then ramp it up.
That's how we got to 7000.
>> Got it. What does this increase mean for people's individual contribution limits?
>> Your individual contribution limit is based on how many years that you have since you turned 18 since 2009. So if you were 18 and 2009, your annual contribution limit and let's say you never contributed to a TFSA for 2023, it would've been $88,000 after 2024, it will go up to $95,000.
That's if you've never contributed. The best way to find out your contribution limit is to go on CRA's my account and look at that or your notice of assessment will also give you that information.
>> I find this interesting because the average unused contribution room among TFSA holders is just over $40,000. That's a lot of room. Can you remind people of the benefits of using a TFSA so they can take advantage of it?
>> It's tax-free, it's the only thing we have that's truly tax-free like that. As well, when you withdraw money from your TFSA, it doesn't actually get counted towards your taxable income so it won't affect any income tested benefits, it won't affect your OAS clawback. When you withdraw from and that contribution room gets added to the next year. It's great for short-term goals but really it's meant for those longer-term goals. So if you're saving for a car, if you are saving for that vacation you always been waiting for, this is the time to really make sure that you top those contributions.
>> And develop your equity.
>> Absolutely.
>> With this increase, is it wise to consider moving money from an unregistered account into a TFSA?
>> It depends. You have to take into account the fact that if you have a nonregistered account and you liquidate assets, there will likely be a tax liability. You transferred to your TFSA in your TFSA is going to have to make up that tax payment before it starts making money for you. So the best course of action is to make sure that you do crunch the numbers, speak to your account into your financial advisor because if you do bump up your income from one year because you liquidated something from your nonregistered account, you don't want it to affect other things. For the most part, it usually comes out in favour of getting that money into the TFSA but make sure you crunch the numbers anyway.
>> I'm a long-term investor but can you trade in your TFSA?
>> Absolutely.
You can trade in it for sure, but you have to be careful not to be considered to be daytrading. You also be careful of the fact that there are some prohibited investments that you cannot make within your TFSA. Of course, if you do trade in the US, the US does not recognize the tax-free status of the TFSA so there is going to be some withholding. You're not going to have to declare it on your income tax return as income but the withholding will be done at the source.
So you have to be careful about those things but the CRA website has some great resources about that.
>> Okay, finally, is it worth speaking with someone to help you make the most of your TFSA contribution room?
>> Absolutely. This is the time to speak to your financial advisor or investment advisor as well because of what we spoke about earlier to make sure you are maximizing those contributions.
>> That was Georgia Swan, tax and estate planner with TD Wealth speaking with MoneyTalk's Anthony Okolie.
Now, let's get our educational segment of the day.
If you are looking to find out what stocks are catching the eye of analysts, WebBroker has tools which can help.
Joining us now to discuss, Bryan Rogers, senior client education instructor with TD Direct Investing.
Great to see you. Let's talk about the stock that analysts are talking about. How would we find that?
>> Yeah, that's a good question, Greg.
The Analyst Centre and Whataburger is a great tool, one that I like quite a bit because for a while in WebBroker you pull up a stock and see maybe one or two analysts, maybe a couple of analysts ranking the stock and you wouldn't know what other ones are out there there could be ranking it.
Here's a perspective of a few analysts, but what about the rest?
From client feedback over the years, we identified a third-party provider that provides information called Tip Ranks and that ended up into a tool on WebBroker called the Analyst Centre. I want to do a dive into show everybody what benefits it can have to see what analysts are saying about a stock and maybe I can get an idea and gauge some further research into a particular stock. If we jump into WebBroker, I want to first show everyone the area that will default on the Analyst Centre to this most recent section and then there are also trending stocks as well. If we go back your little bit and wants to find it, just back up slightly and make sure we know where this is, we are going to go to the research tab within my broker and then to the Analyst Centre.
There are a couple of ways to find this.
This is a way to start from scratch. Click on the Analyst Centre and it defaults to the most recent. It's going to show you these are the analyst ratings of the most recent analyst ratings within the US and Canadian markets and you can see it filtered by analysts and ranking.
If you want to see the Analyst Centre are the top analyst, five-star rated in terms of their past rankings, you're saying the best of the best in terms of analysts.
Maybe you want to expand your horizons a bit more and see some that are not five-star but four-star or if you want to check these you can see all of the analyst ratings as well. You can see on the right hand side that this is now showing analysts that are ranked five or four stars and it gives you the stocks that they have actually identified recently and analysed or rated, gave their own rating, and they will put either a hold or a buy or sell. You can see the price target.
Some of them might be outside of the range were looking for, too low or too high, but there are ways you can look at stocks that might be trending as well.
So if I scroll down I can see that I filter a bit here, I can filter by a number of different things if I wanted to do United States or just stocks in Canada or if I want to look at the market cap size or sector so you can do that by jumping into the trending stocks.
They are most rated stocks more recently and you can see there is a pretty big list as I scroll down I can go down to the bottom and there's going to be a number of pages of stocks that are analysed or rated by the analysts at this point.
Then you can go to the top and filter it and say that you want to see the best rated stocks in the last week for example.
If I look at that, I can see both Canadian and the US, it showing both countries right now and I can even filter further, strong body or just by, I can look at worst rated if I'm looking to do a short position and then I can filter further by US if I want to look at US stocks, I can look at Canada. So these lists are gonna be created however you filter so you can filter down as much as you like and then this is going to give you an idea of either what's being rated most recently or what is trending based on a strong buy or a strong sell. This is from a company called tip ranks.
People can subscribe to it outside of WebBroker but WebBroker users that get this for free within the platform.
>> These are different ways of screening through criteria. They see a stock that piques their interest, what's the next step there?
>> That's a really important question.
You don't want to rely just on the analysts. That is an input, one input that's going to come in, but it's easy to go into further information but you can use that as a starting point if you want to go to those trending stocks and find a stock that's 1 Easy Way to do it. Or if you do have a stock in mind already and you want to see, hey, this tip ranks thing, does it apply to the stock identified? You can use the Analyst Centre and then other additional things to research it further. Let's take a quick look at how you would do that.
Let me change this to the US. I'm gonna go best rated over the last 30 days, so will it in a month, I'm gonna go to the United States on a filter down a little bit more, let's say I go to a mega-cap stock if that's what I'm looking for. I could go further into a sector if I had a sector in mind. You can see stocks that are familiar to us already. There is Amazon, Microsoft and so on.
But if we wanted to look at Microsoft further, we would have to click on the link of the symbol and I'll take us into more detail in the stock and web broker where we have this page, we have an overview, we have charts, we have news, all of the stuff is available for us to research, even reports. If I go to reports, you're gonna see a listing of available reports that are offered by web broker so there are detailed investor reports here as well on the stock. So my favourites are I would say the MorningStar analyst report and there's a quantitative report and I like Thompson as well, it gives your ranking in a number of different fundamental areas of how the stock ranks out of 10.
And then I mentioned that you could use the Analyst Centre as well for that specific stock. You might have Microsoft here. I can go to analysts and now I can get a good idea of what's their idea of an average price target going forward? You can see this 37 analysts rating Microsoft here giving it a strong buy. There 36 out of the 37 has a buy rating so you can see those type of statistics. And you can scroll down and look at, who is writing this and what is their price target and what is their ranking? You can even follow some of these two.
If you click on some of these analysts, you can follow them, like social media where you can follow and see what other stocks they might be ranking as well.
That's just some of the detail. There's so much more you can go into with fundamentals, earnings and see events like upcoming earnings and dividends and things like that, and then really make your decision based on looking at the charts and other stuff.
>> Lots of useful tools there, Bryan, what investors are doing their homework on a stock. Thanks for that.
>> Thanks, Greg.
>> Bryan Rogers, Senior client education instructor with TD Direct Investing.
And make sure to check out the learning centre in WebBroker for more educational videos, live, interactive master classes and upcoming webinars.
Before we get you an update on the markets, a reminder that you can get in touch with us at any time.
Do you have a question about investing or what's driving the markets?
Our guests are eager to hear what's on your mind, so send us your questions.
There are two ways you can get in touch with us.
You can send us an email anytime at moneytalklive@td.com or you can use the question box right below the screen here on WebBroker. Just write in your question and hit send.
We'll see if one of our guests can get you the answer right here at MoneyTalk Live.
We are having a look at TD's Advanced Dashboard, platform designed for active traders available through TD Direct Investing. This is the heat map function.
It gives us a view of the market movers today because the markets are closed for market Luther King day. We will be looking at the TSX. The TSX 60. Let's screen through by Price and volume. We have seen some interesting moves today. Among the uranium plays, Cameco will represent the TSX 60, CCO, a little more than 2%.
We've seen quite a move in these uranium stocks, whether it's in the centre Cameco since the beginning of the year, there is some fresh concerns in Kazakhstan that they might not hit the production targets they thought they would over the next two years for a variety of reasons, poor production numbers perhaps. Getting some people excited about the environment for some of these uranium plays.
Another update for Cameco. A more makes for traditional energy plays like CNQ or Cenovus making some games. In the materials basket, First Quantum is up to the tune of about 1 1/3%. The miners are not really taking part. Then BCE, up a little more than 1%. Telus and Rogers showing. Because the American markets are closed, the volumes are pretty subdued here on Bay Street so we are seeing some of these moves today but perhaps want to keep a keener ion market moves as we move through the week.
You need more information on TD Advanced Dashboard by visiting TD.com/Advanced Dashboard.
If you own a vacation home or other assets outside of Canada, there is in circumstances where you might want to consider having a will as well as powers of attorney documentation that account for these assets.
Mindi Banach, a tax and estate planner, TD Wealth, joined MoneyTalk's Kim Parlee to discuss what to know when it comes to estate planning for your and at international assets.
>> Lee focus on the will. Despite common advice that suggest a blanket need for a foreign will if you own assets outside of Canada, in my opinion, it more closely aligns with the typical legal answer of it depends on the unique facts and circumstances of each case and more specifically I think it depends on two factors. Number one, the specific jurisdiction that you are looking at, as well as number two, the specific asset that you own. In that other jurisdiction, if they do not recognize a Canadian well, I think the argument for drafting a foreign will becomes more compelling but I then think you need to look at the two factors I mentioned, specific jurisdiction in specific assets, because in other jurisdictions they may have alternative strategies available to transfer specific assets after death, rendering the need for any well whether it's a Canadian will or a foreign well, unnecessary. For example, I'm thinking of certain states in the United States, Florida being one of them, they have a specific strategy available in Florida that allows you to transfer real estate property after death, rendering the need for any well, whether it's Canadian or US, unnecessary. Whether or not you should utilize that strategy or you should draft a will in the forest jurisdiction, again, look at the factors, the specific jurisdiction and the specific asset because practically it may make more sense to draft a foreign will. He wants to look at those two factors. Switching focus to powers of attorney, I think that the best practices that you should be drafting a power of attorney in every single jurisdiction where you own assets and this is based on practical nature. If you own assets in Ontario, what Ontario is going to readily accept a power of attorney that was drafted outside of Ontario lightly before they except that foreign power of attorney in Ontario and Ontario does recognize foreign powers of attorney, they may demand Ontario legal opinion and because of that it likely becomes more time and cost effective to just draft a power of attorney in every jurisdiction where you own assets. One other point that I do want to highlight that is vital is that you want to ensure that if you do end up drafting multiple jurisdictional powers of attorney, or multiple jurisdictional wills, you ensure that the documents don't unintentionally revoke each other. You would not want your Ontario documents to revoke your Florida documents and vice versa.
>> What happens, in that example you gave, because it becomes a cautionary tale, the question is, what happens if you don't put the proper paperwork in place for foreign assets where you unintentionally put something that contradicts?
>> Let me share a cautionary tale. There is a documented case on this where there was a Canadian man who set up a fairly complex Canadian estate plan and in his Canadian will, he distribute the assets to his biological children from his first marriage as well as distributed assets into a spousal trust for his second wife who was significantly younger than him.
After he had signed and set up his Canadian will, he subsequently purchased property in Florida and he thought he did what was right and he drafted a Florida will and in that will that only covered his Florida property, he did distribute the Florida property specifically and exclusively to his second wife. The mistake that ended up happening was that that Florida will include what I call a general revocation law which indicates: I revoke all prior wills.
>> Which is common, right?
>> It is common.
What that Florida will did was it revoked the Canadian will so what ends up happening is when this man passed away, all of these Canadian assets ended up getting distributed under intestacy laws which is the law that governs if you don't have a will and he didn't have a valid Canadian will and the intestacy laws did not align with his original intention that he had included in his Canadian will.
Cautionary tale. I'm not saying it was a mistake to draft a foreign well, it was a mistake not to get the right cross-border advice.
>> That's so hard. Someone is gone to the work have created something to not have his wishes carried out, that's hard.
Who should people speak to you to understand the appropriate steps for them?
>> It's not only important to go to a lawyer who has special expertise in estate planning, you need to go to an estate planning lawyer who has familiarity or deeper understanding of the law and that other jurisdiction and vice versa. You want to ensure that your documents are done the right way.
If you can find a dual license lawyer, great, but it can be like finding a unicorn, it might be impossible or not exist. Best to find a Canadian lawyer who has familiarity with that foreign jurisdiction and vice versa.
>> That was Mindi Banach, tax and estate planner with TD Wealth speaking with MoneyTalk's Kim Parlee.
We will leave you with a final look at the TSX. The American markets are closed for Martin Luther King Day. Trading volumes are muted here today.
We are up 1/10 of a percent. The uranium plays including Cameco and Denison today continue to shine. They've been on the move upward since the beginning of the year.
Stay tuned for tomorrow's show. We will be joined by Jing Roy, VP, Dir. and portfolio manager for TDS allocation with TD Asset Management. We will be taking your questions about asset allocation. You can get a Headstart with your questions. Just email moneytalklive@td.com. That's all the time we have for the show today. Thanks for watching, and we will see you tomorrow.
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